Pinned to left corner of the Windows desktop, Cortana has yet to be localised for Australian audiences but will answer carefully enunciated questions from Australians who set her language to US English.

But how good is she compared to the latest version of Apple’s Siri?

We pitted the two personal assistants against one another — Cortana versus Siri, Surface versus iPad — in an attempt to determine a winner over 29 questions testing their features and humour.

Across all devices ... Microsoft’s personal assistant Cortana is available on desktop, laptop and tablet computers, as well as phones.Source:Supplied

26. What do you look like?

Siri: “To tell the truth, I’m rather abstract-looking.”

Cortana: “Some things I resemble: a hula hoop, a donut … a halo.”

Winner: Tie.

27. What is the meaning of life?

Siri: “It’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya.”

Cortana: “I’ve heard from a reliable source that the answer is 42.”

Winner: Tie.

28. Why is it so?

Siri: “Because is the answer.”

Cortana: Misunderstood. Delivered web results for “why is it sunny” and “why is eat sorry”.

Winner: Siri.

29. OK Glass.

Siri: “Stop trying to strap me to your forehead. It won’t work.”

Cortana: Web results for Google Glass.

Winner: Siri.

Overall Winner: Siri

Microsoft’s Cortana narrowly missed a victory in our 29-question test, thanks to a mix of snappy answers and added functionality.

The new voice assistant is also likely to prove handier to users over time as more features are added, it adapts to the user’s questions, and it is used to search files on its host machine or in Microsoft’s cloud.

An Australian version will also become available to Windows Insiders later this year.

Apple’s Siri is better than Cortana in some fields, however, as Cortana delivers Bing search results by default and does not offer location-based answers.